Director - Engineering

JioHotstar; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 13,000,000; Full time

Job summary

JioHotstar seeks a Director of Engineering - Content Commerce to lead the development of a strategic platform at the intersection of content, advertising, and commerce. You will define technology strategy and build platforms enabling shoppable content and seamless product discovery during viewing experiences.

This role requires strong product thinking, architectural depth, and execution ownership, with responsibility for content understanding, catalog management, real‑time decision making, and

Qualifications

• 13+ years in software development.
• 5+ years in leadership roles.
• Strong architectural and distributed-systems background.
• Ability to translate business opportunities into scalable platforms.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the engineering vision and roadmap for Content Commerce, aligned with JioHotstar’s product and business strategy.
• Build and lead high-performing engineering teams across platform, backend, client, data, and machine learning disciplines.
• Build systems for content and product understanding, contextual recommendations, product ranking, catalogue management, and real‑time decision‑making.
• Build reusable capabilities for interactive placements, product showcases, storefronts and brand integrations
• Design robust integrations with commerce platforms, advertisers, sellers, payment systems, and other ecosystem partners.
• Establish measurement and attribution capabilities to evaluate engagement, conversion, partner performance, and business impact.
• Ensure high standards of reliability, scalability, security, observability, cost efficiency, and engineering quality.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Content, Advertising, Data Science, Business, and external partners to shape strategy and deliver outcomes.
• Navigate ambiguity and convert broad business opportunities into clear technology platforms, execution plans, and measurable milestones.
• Foster a culture of ownership, innovation, strong technical judgment, and outcome orientation

Skills

Leadership

Zero-to-one

Distributed systems

Architecture

Low latency

API integrations

Education

Bachelor/Master in CS/CE/ML

Job description

Job Summary: As the Director of Engineering - Content Commerce, you will lead the development of a new and strategic platform at the intersection of content, advertising, and commerce for JioHotstar.

The vision is to make content shoppable - enabling users to discover and purchase products naturally while watching shows, movies, sports, or short-form content. You will define the technology strategy and build the platforms required to move users seamlessly from content-led inspiration to product discovery and purchase. This is a zero-to-one leadership role requiring strong product thinking, architectural depth, and execution ownership. You will build and lead engineering teams responsible for contextual product discovery, shoppable content experiences, storefronts, brand integrations, measurement, and integrations with commerce partners.

About the team: Content Commerce is a new and high-impact bet for JioHotstar. The team will build the technology that powers commerce experiences across JioHotstar’s content surfaces.

The platform will bring together content understanding, product catalogues, contextual recommendations, interactive placements, transaction journeys, attribution, and partner integrations. It will support experiences ranging from products featured within entertainment content to merchandise, brand activations, and contextual commerce during live sports.

Key responsibilities:

• Define and execute the engineering vision and roadmap for Content Commerce, aligned with JioHotstar’s product and business strategy.
• Build and lead high-performing engineering teams across platform, backend, client, data, and machine learning disciplines.
• Build systems for content and product understanding, contextual recommendations, product ranking, catalogue management, and real‑time decision‑making.
• Build reusable capabilities for interactive placements, product showcases, storefronts and brand integrations
• Design robust integrations with commerce platforms, advertisers, sellers, payment systems, and other ecosystem partners.
• Establish measurement and attribution capabilities to evaluate engagement, conversion, partner performance, and business impact.
• Ensure high standards of reliability, scalability, security, observability, cost efficiency, and engineering quality.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Content, Advertising, Data Science, Business, and external partners to shape strategy and deliver outcomes.
• Navigate ambiguity and convert broad business opportunities into clear technology platforms, execution plans, and measurable milestones.
• Foster a culture of ownership, innovation, strong technical judgment, and outcome orientation

Skills and attributes for success:

• Experience leading multiple software engineering teams and engineering managers responsible for large-scale consumer or platform products.
• Proven experience building zero-to-one products or platforms and scaling them through multiple stages of maturity.
• Strong architectural and distributed‑systems experience, including high‑scale, low‑latency, and highly available systems.
• Strong understanding of consumer product development and the ability to balance user experience, technology, and business outcomes.
• Experience integrating with external platforms and building extensible APIs, partner frameworks, or platform capabilities.
• A strong track record of delivering complex, cross‑functional initiatives involving multiple engineering and business teams.
• Ability to operate effectively in an ambiguous and rapidly evolving problem space.
• Demonstrated ability to hire, develop, and retain strong engineering talent and build effective leadership layers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate technical strategy and trade-offs clearly to both technical and business stakeholders.

Preferred education and experience:

Bachelors/Masters in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Machine Learning with 13+ years of experience in software development and 5+ years in leadership roles

About Us:

Perched firmly at the nucleus of spellbinding content and innovative technology, JioStar is a leading global media & entertainment company that is reimagining the way audiences consume entertainment and sports. Its television network and streaming service together reach more than 750 million viewers every week, igniting the dreams and aspirations of hundreds of million people across geographies.